Critical Linking: March 16, 2012

“However, there is no evidence of that here, neither in the stale, unoriginal material, nor in the banal and cliché-ridden historical judgements, nor in the lame, tired narrative style; just evidence of the repellent arrogance of a man who thinks that because he’s a celebrated novelist, he can write a book about Hitler that people should read, even though he’s put very little work into writing it and even less thought.”

“By avoiding all but a few images of the games themselves, the trailers sidestep showing violence in all it’s [sic] dubious glory while encouraging movie-goers to come see kids kill each other.”

A really good point. The trailers do make the movie look like just a really intense scout troop.

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“As for my salary requirements, I’m afraid that readers of my calibre don’t come cheap. The cost to you is that for every book of yours that I read, I will want to think about it. And that I am always moved to comment. So I commit myself to think about your work. But what I think is entirely up to me.”

It’s true. We readers have the annoying habit of having our own opinions.

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“Digital books are not like that. There are fixed costs associated with getting the book together in the first place, but selling five copies costs about the same as selling 5,000 or 5 million.”

You know what they say about Lipitor: it only costs a few cents per pill. Except for that first one, which cost a few hundred million dollars.

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“Consequently, seemingly irrelevant factors like remembering whether you read something at the top or the bottom of page — or whether it was on the right or left hand side of a two-page spread or near a graphic — can help cement material in mind.”